too young?

Bug is 9. Isn't she cute?

She's smart and pretty and witty. She's going to be quite the catch soon.

But for now, she's a drama queen.

"Mom, you HAVE to let me shave my legs!"

"Ummm.... no. The earlier you start shaving, the longer you have to do it for the rest of your life."

"No, Mom. You HAVE to. A cute boy sat by on the bus the other day, and then he saw my hairy legs and he looked at me with DISGUST. I'm wearing pants until you let me shave."

"I'm sure you're exaggerating. Your legs are fine. And you're about to start swimming, the hair will fade from the sun and the chlorine."

Bug didn't answer. Instead, she took my phone and took this picture:

Hmm... she might need to shave.

Molly's Musings-- Livin' the Dream

Hi! It's Molly again.

It was pretty quiet around these parts for the week, and The Soft Lady is all paranoid about her computer, so she's not going to let me play on it for very long. Apparently SOMEBODY--  not mentioning any names-- was chewing on a cord and it made something go haywire. But I hear that The Tall Man is a genius and was able to fix it, so all is right with the world again.

The most exciting thing that happened this week is that it rained, so I got to play in the mud for a bit!

The Soft Lady wasn't very excited to see that, and she threatened to give me yet another bath.

There has been some discussion on whether or not I think I'm human. Let me make one thing abundantly clear. I know I am a dog. I'm thankful I am a dog! All other creatures WISH they were a dog, especially the STINKIN' CATS.

But yes, I admit, I enjoy the finer things in life, namely the sofa. I'm not sure why Mama Dog insists on sleeping on the floor when there is a giant dog bed in the middle of the living room?

What can I say? I'm living the dream.




 

Where's Ana?

Ugh. It never rains but it pours.

My mother called the other day, in a frantic state. After her hemming and hawing for awhile and a lot of "I don't want to bother you...." I was able to piece together this story.

Due to the poor choices my sister Kari has made in the past, she is 20 years old with two children, ages 2 and 5, with 2 different men, neither of whom she is currently with. Kari and my niece and nephew live with my mother (We have different dads, and Kari's father, like her two baby daddies, is not in the picture).

Kari was doing an ok job taking care of the kids, but relying on my mom heavily for help, and my mom was allowing that to happen. Then Kari got a new boyfriend, and she pretty much stopped taking care of the children. Kari would just sleep the entire time she was at home, and as soon as my mom would come home from work, Kari would leave the kids with my mom and then go off to places unknown.

Finally, my mom had had enough. She's 61 years old-- she doesn't want to have to take care of two babies. So she told Kari she had to move out. Her logic was that if Kari was living on her own, it would force her to take care of the kids.

link

Maybe not the best decision, in hindsight.

Kari said she moved in with her boyfriend. That was a week ago. But then, my nephew's father, Drew, came to my mother's house.

Kari had dropped my nephew off for a visit and hadn't been back. THAT WAS A WEEK AGO. Holy crap, Kari has gone off the deep end.

"OK, so where's Kari?" I asked. And where's my niece, Ana?

My mother has no idea. Kari's boyfriend lives in a town 30 minutes away from where Kari works and from where Ana goes to preschool, and Kari doesn't have a car. My mother doesn't believe that Kari is staying with the boyfriend.

I told my mother that a more likely scenario is that she's staying with the boyfriend and not going to work.

My mother knows that Kari still must be in town, or at least traveling into town, because each time my mother comes home from work, she sees that Kari has been to the house during the day, picking up her mail and picking up more of her belongings. So she knows that Kari is ok.

But the question still remains-- where is Ana? And why did Kari leave Jacob (my nephew) and not return?

link

My mother wanted me to find out where Kari was. I live 40 minutes away from all of this drama, so there wasn't a whole lot I could do. But I called Kari and left a message. Then I texted her. Then I went on Facebook, but I saw that she hadn't been on there since January (is Facebook not cool anymore?).

I went on Instagram, and saw that she had posted a photo there just week earlier, so I left a message for her to call me there, too.

That was two days ago. No response.

There are other people I could try to contact-- Jacob's dad, Kari's other half sister, etc.-- but I don't know that I need to do that.    We know that Jacob's ok, we  know that Kari's ok..... we assume that Ana is ok.  Likewise, there are things my mom could do-- go to the preschool to make sure Ana is attending, drive by Ana's job-- but my mother is stubborn. She wants Kari to apologize to her.

Yeah, right. Kari is 20. An apology isn't likely.

Molly's Musing's-- Canine Racism

Hi. It's Molly again.

I am still ultimately cute, of course. I'm three months old, and I weigh 14.7 pounds. As you might be able to tell, my original collar is getting too small for me! The Tall Man had to go out over the weekend and get me a new one.  My feet are huge, I keep tripping over them. The Soft Lady is sure that I'm going to grow up to be bigger than Mama Dog. But for now, I'm still cute and little.

My favorite thing to do is sleep.

I am rather spoiled.

I am still not housebroken.... this has caused much grumpiness in the household.

I had to go to THE VET for more shots again, but this time, I was too big to fit in the carrier that's made for the STINKIN' CATS, thank goodness for that! So I got to walk in like a big dog on a leash! I was quite  proud of myself.... until I realized where we were going, and then I flat out refused to take another step! No, no sir, not me! The Tall Man had to carry me in.... but don't worry, I plan on getting big enough so that The Tall Man won't be able to even carry me soon.

But it was fun riding in the car on The Soft Lady's lap:

The Soft Lady's biggest worry right now has been finding an insurance carrier that will cover me. Did you know that most insurance carriers will exclude a pit bulls (and other dogs too) from their policies, even if they have no history of violence? It's seems wrong to punish me just because of the way I was born. That's like.... canine racism, that's what it is! And it's so unfair, because "pit bull" is really a general term, look at all these dogs that were considered pit bulls:

link-- Son of a B, this picture isn't showing up anymore. Imagine 6 dogs that all look different. 

Clearly, they all look different, and I don't look like any of these.

Luckily, The Soft Lady works in insurance, and after studying the policy and talking to her agent, The Soft Lady found a loop hole. The exclusion applies only to purebreds, not mixed breeds. A chat with the vet later, and the box for MIXED BREED was checked.  This means that my chances of being a show dog are over.... but I didn't really see a BEST IN SHOW trophy in my future anyway.

(The Soft Lady warns that some insurance companies exclude mixed breeds as well-- check with your insurance company to see what your policy says.)

weekend update: Happy Easter!

Happy Monday! Did everyone have a fabulous Easter weekend?

Friday night was uneventful. We worked and went to school, then came home and I made breakfast for dinner. I made these nests from The Pioneer Woman.... this is her picture, mine didn't come out this nice:

My husband wanted to watch Star Wars after the kids went to bed, but that's not a movie we own, so he settled on Spaceballs. I'm sorry.... the two movies just don't even compare. I need to buy the Star Wars movies now.

On Saturday, we had to take Molly for an early morning vet appointment, so we opted for quick breakfast smoothies from Jamba.... I had a Kale-ribbean  Breeze, which although tasty and filling at the time, did not stick to my ribs and I was starving by the time it was lunch.

I am starting a healthy eating challenge on Monday that I found here, and that requires 10 vegetables a day. That is a whole lot  of vegetables! So I figured I better splurge this weekend. We went out for cheeseburgers for lunch. They were served with a cheese skirt that was probably 18 thousand calories:

So good, yet so bad.

We had to run a bunch of errands in the afternoon, so it was dark by the time we got around to dyeing our eggs. We went with the shaving cream method, super fun and easy! Just spray a bunch of shaving cream into a pie pan, add some squirts of food coloring, and roll your egg around! The kids loved playing with the shaving cream, and the eggs have a marbled effect that I thought was really cool:

Shaving cream and two different colors

Here are the kids about to roll their eggs around

This is what the shaving looks like after you've rolled an egg in it. Cool swirliness.

after the eggs were completely covered with shaving cream, we took  them out and let them sit for like 10 minutes. 

then we wiped the shaving cream off

and revealed a marbled egg!

I thought they came out really cute, and it wasn't as messy as you might think. Strangely enough, The Agent was the only one who ended up getting color stained on his hands.... and he didn't dye any eggs.

On Easter Sunday, the kids were excited to see what was in their baskets:

And then we went to my dad's where I was there for 30 seconds before my dad said, "what did you do with your hair?" And then used his hands to try to flatten it.

I have naturally curly hair, and I didn't want to spend an hour straightening it. Get over it, Dad.

We have an egg hunt and the adults play, too. There's money in the adult eggs, so it's no joke. The eggs are camo colored, so they're hard to find:

This is a blurry pic, but there's an egg in there.

The whole group gets in to it;

And we were done hunting eggs (there were still four more eggs out there somewhere when we called it quits), we sat down for dinner:

and then went outside to play some ball: 

It was a great Easter weekend! Now it's back to work!

1000-- A Measure of Success?

This is my 1000th post. I started this blog on November 1, 2010, so that means this little blog has been around for about 4 and a half years.

Is the accomplishment of writing 1000 posts a measure of success? Eh. I mean, I guess it's something to be proud of. I've been writing over 200  posts a year, and there's something to be said that even though this blog doesn't get a million hits a day, I've stuck with it, nurtured it, loved it.

Yes, I love my little blog.

So, now that I've hit 1000 posts, it's time to think about where I want to go in the next 1000 posts. I use the blog as an online diary,  chronicling my life's happenings, so there will certainly be more of that. But I kinda need to find a niche. Like I went to school to be a teacher, so maybe I should be teaching something? Or I had dreams of becoming a writer, maybe I could post more fictional pieces. Or maybe I could write about what I know, like the struggles of being a working mom.

Or maybe I could write about all of the above, like I've been doing.

Have you hit 1000 yet? How did it feel?

Golden

When something is enjoyable, people typically say that it's neat or cool or even amazeballs. But not Casey. He would always say "golden."

How'd you do on the chem test? Golden.
What'd you think of the new Tom Cruise movie? Golden.
Did you get caught coming in past curfew last night?  Nah, man. Golden.

So we were all a little confused when he used the word to describe the new sophomore girl who had just moved in next door. She most definitely was not golden. From her stringy hair to her pasty skin to the way she always had her head down looking at her shoes, she was dull and gloomy, not golden.

But Casey, he must have seen something more. "She's so golden, and she doesn't even know it."

So he started treating her like the golden girl he knew she was. He walked her to class. He drove her to school every day. He spent his weekends mowing her lawn, showing her around town, and walking her dog.

At first, she was as confused as the rest of us. Even a brand new sophomore could tell right away that Casey was top dog in the senior class. He was smart and popular and just an all around cool guy. We all knew it, and she knew it, too. So why was Casey bothering with her? But he kept at it, showering her with attention. And then something kind of amazing happened.

She started to glow.

No, not at first, and not all at once. But we started to notice little things. Her skin had more color. Her hair was suddenly full and bouncy. But we stopped and stared when we saw them walking hand in hand two months after she had moved in.

Her head was held high.
Her rosy red lips were curved into a smile.
And her eyes.

Oh, her eyes.

Her golden amber eyes were the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

She looked up at Casey, and he looked back down at her, and the love that transpired between them was undeniable. It was real and pure and I knew, even then, that they would still be sharing that love twenty years from now.

And that's when I saw what he saw.

She was so golden, I had to look away.